(The Associated Press)Pierce County sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer says Maurice Clemmons was shot and killed early Tuesday in a Seattle neighborhood. Authorities suspected Clemmons of killing four Lakewood, Wash. officers at a coffee shop Sunday morning in Parkland, a Tacoma suburb about 35 miles south of Seattle.SEATTLE -- The man suspected of
gunning down four police officers in a suburban coffee shop was shot
and killed by Seattle police early Tuesday, a sheriff's spokesman said.

Maurice
Clemmons was shot to death in a working-class south Seattle
neighborhood after police tracked him down using possible hiding spots
supplied by Pierce County investigators, said Ed Troyer, a spokesman
for the county sheriff.

Authorities say Clemmons, 37, killed the
four Lakewood officers at a coffee shop Sunday morning in Parkland, a
Tacoma suburb about 35 miles south of Seattle.

Police said they
aren't sure what prompted Clemmons to shoot the officers as they did
paperwork on their laptops. Clemmons was described as increasingly
erratic in the past few months and had been arrested earlier this year
on charges that he punched a sheriff's deputy in the face.

At the
scene, a couple of dozen police officers milled around, shaking hands
and patting each other on the back after one of the largest manhunts in
the region's history.

Clemmons had stayed on the run for nearly
two days with help from a network of friends and family who gave him
places to stay, medical aid, rides and money, police said. Troyer told
Fox News police arrested three people overnight on suspicion of
rendering criminal assistance.

On Monday, officers detained a sister of Clemmons who they think treated the suspect's gunshot wound.

"We believe she drove him up to Seattle and bandaged him up," Troyer said.

Police
believe people close to Clemmons have misled officers, and Troyer said
anyone helping him could face charges. Clemmons' sister wasn't in
custody late Monday, and her name wasn't released.

Authorities
said the gunman singled out the Lakewood officers and spared employees
and other customers at the coffee shop. He then fled, but not before he
was apparently shot in the torso by one of the dying officers.

Troyer
told the Tacoma News-Tribune that Clemmons indicated the night before
the shooting "that he was going to shoot police and watch the news."

Police
surrounded a house in a Seattle neighborhood late Sunday following a
tip Clemmons had been dropped off there. After an all-night siege, a
SWAT team entered the home and found it empty. But police said Clemmons
had been there.

Police frantically chased leads on Monday,
searching multiple spots in the Seattle and Tacoma area and at one
point cordoning off a park where people thought they saw Clemmons.

Authorities
found a handgun carried by the killer, along with a pickup truck
belonging to the suspect with blood stains inside. They posted a
$125,000 reward for information leading to Clemmons' arrest and alerted
hospitals to be on the lookout for a man seeking treatment for gunshot
wounds.

"We need to get him into custody and we need to end this," Troyer said Monday night.

Authorities
in two states were criticized amid revelations that Clemmons was
allowed to walk the streets despite a teenage crime spree in Arkansas
that landed him an 108-year prison sentence. He was released early
after then-Gov. Mike Huckabee commuted his sentence.

Huckabee
cited Clemmons' youth in granting the request. But Clemmons quickly
reverted to his criminal past, violated his parole and was returned to
prison. He was released again in 2004.

"This guy should have
never been on the street," said Brian D. Wurts, president of the police
union in Lakewood. "Our elected officials need to find out why these
people are out."

Huckabee said on Fox News Channel's "The
O'Reilly Factor" Monday night that Clemmons was allowed back on the
street because prosecutors failed to file paperwork in time.

"My word to Mr. Huckabee is man up and own what you did," Jegley said.

Clemmons
was charged in Washington state earlier this year with assaulting a
police officer and raping a child, and investigators in the sex case
said he was motivated by visions that he was Jesus Christ and that the
world was on the verge of the apocalypse.

But he was released from jail after posting bail with the assistance of Jail Sucks Bail Bonds.

Documents
related to those charges indicate a volatile personality. In one
instance, he is accused of gathering his wife and young relatives and
forcing them to undress.

"The whole time Clemmons kept saying
things like trust him, the world is going to end soon, and that he was
Jesus," a Pierce County sheriff's report said.